The Four Dimensions of Power: Understanding Domination, Empowerment and Democracy

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In this accessible and sophisticated exploration of the nature and workings of social and political power, Haugaard examines the interrelation between domination and empowerment. Building upon the perspectives of Steven Lukes, Michel Foucault, Amy Allen, Hannah Arendt, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu and others, he offers a clear theoretical framework, delineating power in four interrelated dimensions.

The first and second dimensions of power entail two different types of social conflict. The third dimension concerns tacit knowledge, uses of truth and reification. Drawing upon genealogical theory and accounts of slavery as social death, the fourth dimension of power concerns the power to create social subjects. The book concludes with an original normative pragmatist power-based account of democracy.

Offering lucid and entertaining illustrations of complex theoretical perspectives, this book is essential reading for scholars and activists.

Reviews

'The Four Dimensions of Power is eminently readable as an introduction to the central power debates for the student, yet stimulating and provocative for the specialist.'
Stewart Clegg, Distinguished Professor, University of Technology, Sydney

Hugely impressive. Haugaard embraces a wide range of issues and of relevant thinkers and theories and skilfully deploys the various analytical distinctions that have surfaced in discussion of powerall within a framework that gives the reader the sense of moving both forward and deeper. The product of many years of reflection, this readable book achieves something very important indeed.
Steven Lukes, Professor of Sociology, New York University and author of Power: A Radical View

'Power is one of the most important and yet complex concepts through which we make sense of social and political life. And no-one rivals Mark Haugaard in analysing equally carefully and vividly the many dimensions of power. The magnum opus of one of the most powerful and imaginative social theorists of our time.'
Rainer Forst, Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy, Goethe University Frankfurt

'Pushing the standard actor-agency model toward Wittgenstein, Schutz, Austin, and cultural theory, Haugaard produces a dazzling new map of the subtle and complex intertwinings that political and social power consist of.'
Jeffrey C. Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University

Author Bio

Mark Haugaard is Professor in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway.